


I Believe

by sweetxtangerine



Series: Tattoo AU [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Mulder/Scully UST - Freeform, Near Death Experiences, Punk Scully, Tattooed Scully, Tattoos, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 14:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4831793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetxtangerine/pseuds/sweetxtangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully collapses during a case and Mulder discovers she's covered in tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Set around mid-Season 2.

They’re in the middle of a case when she collapses.

It’s just gone midnight and Mulder swings the door to the morgue open with his elbow, coffee in both hands and a quip on his tongue. He struts over to Scully, who must have dozed off, and puts a coffee on her desk and a hand on her shoulder. Her head lolls as he turns her chair and she slumps to the ground with a dull thud. Just like the other victims. He drops his coffee and it splashes up the leg of his trousers, burning him. He doesn’t even flinch. Kneeling down, a sudden white hot panic prickles his skin.

This isn’t meant to happen to her.

He straightens her out, and takes off his jacket, rolling it up to support her head. He calls to reception that there’s an emergency in the morgue. He hopes they’ll get here soon.

She’s white as a sheet, but warm, thank god. She’s not been unconscious for long. He turns his ear to try and hear her breathe. Nothing. He takes her pulse. Nothing. The few seconds that he’s been leaning over her, checking her vitals, seems like an age and if she doesn’t start breathing soon… He starts chest compressions. One, two, three, four, five, fifteen, thirty. No response. He lifts her chin and pinches her nostrils shut. He begins mouth-to-mouth. No, no response.

The panic sets deeper and everything feels numb to the touch like it’s not even real. Mulder's vision tunnels and his hands shake. He looks hurriedly around and realises that of all the time he spends in the morgue, he’s never really paid attention to it. He sees an AED on the wall, though, and he practically flings himself on it. He fumbles, reading over the instructions, eyes darting across the pictograms. It had been a while since first aid training. He knocks over the kit and finds gloves and pair of scissors. He tears open her jacket and unbuttons her shirt. A million thoughts are flashing through his mind, some heightened, some dulled by the panic.

He’d thought about undressing her before, but only ever as a passing thought. A harmless flirtation. He never dared to hope, and certainly never wanted it under these circumstances.

Her shirt is open but her camisole’s in the way and with every moment that passes he knows he’s closer to losing her. He cuts through the fabric and pushes it aside, snips through the bridge of her bra and pushes it aside. He sees only bright colours, nonsensical colours that have no right to be where they are, but his mind races towards the single goal of getting her breathing, of making her heart beat. He applies the pads, one above her right breast, the other on her ribs and waits for the machine to respond. It prompts him and he presses the shock button.

Her body twitches.

The machine tells him to continue CPR, and so he does. And then it bleeps out to tell him to stop, that it’s analysing. _No shock advised_ scrolls across the screen and he pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath. Her pulse registers on the screen and she splutters a cough. Her eyelids start to flutter.

Mulder’s vision clears a little and the tunnel opens wider and now the colours make sense. Her entire chest, sans the point where the collar of her shirts might sometimes dip, is covered in tattoos. There are gaps here and there where there’s still a little room left to squeeze something more in, but it’s elaborate and beautiful and Mulder has no clue how he knows so much about her but never knew about this. It’s like stumbling across her diary, only the ink is beneath her skin.

And he doesn’t mean to ogle but he is curious. It’s mesmerising. There are so many beautiful pieces to it. There’s a crystal that he’s sure is for her sister, and a heart with an arrow through it with the inscription _Ahab_. There’s so much colour; some pieces he can recognise, some he’s sure have a hidden meaning and some with probably no meaning at all. He traces his fingertips along the ink, much of it raised where it scarred as it healed. He’s completely transfixed and enchanted by the beauty of it all, and just as she starts coming to he catches a glimpse of a little flying saucer, close to her heart, with the words _I Believe_ in a neat, narrow sans serif.

She coughs again and he snaps to reality, suddenly embarrassed about how close he's leaning and how topless she is as he traced her tattoos. He covers her up with her jacket and closes the fastenings, brushes the hair out of her eyes, and steps back as he hears heavy footsteps outside the door. The medical team runs in and he realises that only a few minutes have passed, though it feels like hours, and he stays close to her as they put her on a cart and wheel her to a ward. Mulder gets distracted along the hallway, but catches up quickly.  
  


***

Scully recovers quickly, staying only three nights in the hospital (though the doctor recommended five). Mulder’s convinced he saw some bright, flashing lights and strange figures outside as Scully was wheeled off, but they find no evidence as such and catch no perpetrator. The deaths stop, though, and the case is inconclusive.  
  
He sits at her bedside and she’s alive and well and he’s so, so happy.  
  
They talk for a while and she mentions her tattoos and she laughs, because she never actually expected he’d find out about them by ripping off her clothes as she went into cardiac arrest, and there’s a glint of something in her eyes. 

And he asks her about the little ufo and the words _I Believe_  and she pauses for a moment.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Mulder, but I still don’t believe in aliens.”

He frowns. “Then why do you have it? I mean, 'I believe' kinda makes it sound like you _might_ believe.”  
  
She chooses her words carefully. "It may not be apparent with each of them, but every tattoo I have is a memento of a person or a place or a thing that is of great significance to me. Not all of them are literal. All of them together--they're like a journal that I’ll never lose. They're personal to me. I got that little UFO done because of you, Mulder."

Scully smiles.

“I trust you more than anyone else in the world, Mulder. It doesn’t say ‘I Believe’ because I believe in aliens. It says ‘I Believe’ because I believe in you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you're happy, Payne. <3


End file.
